This is an English translation of one of Korea’s most celebrated historical works, a pre-modern classic so well known to Koreans that it has inspired contemporary literature and television. Written ...
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This is an English translation of one of Korea’s most celebrated historical works, a pre-modern classic so well known to Koreans that it has inspired contemporary literature and television. Written in 1821 by Chong Yagyong (Tasan), Admonitions on Governing the People (Mongmin simsŏ) is a detailed manual for district magistrates on how to govern better. In encyclopedic fashion, Here Chong Yagyong addresses the administration, social and economic life, criminal justice, the military, and the Confucian ritual system. He provides examples of past corrupt officials and discusses topics of the day such as famine relief and social welfare. A general call for overhauling the Korean ruling system, the book also makes the radical proposition that the purpose of government is to serve the interests of the people. This translation opens a new window on early-nineteenth century Korea and makes available to a wide audience a work whose main concerns simultaneously transcend national and cultural boundaries.Less

Admonitions on Governing the People : Manual for All Administrators

Yagyong Chong

Published in print: 2010-08-15

This is an English translation of one of Korea’s most celebrated historical works, a pre-modern classic so well known to Koreans that it has inspired contemporary literature and television. Written in 1821 by Chong Yagyong (Tasan), Admonitions on Governing the People (Mongmin simsŏ) is a detailed manual for district magistrates on how to govern better. In encyclopedic fashion, Here Chong Yagyong addresses the administration, social and economic life, criminal justice, the military, and the Confucian ritual system. He provides examples of past corrupt officials and discusses topics of the day such as famine relief and social welfare. A general call for overhauling the Korean ruling system, the book also makes the radical proposition that the purpose of government is to serve the interests of the people. This translation opens a new window on early-nineteenth century Korea and makes available to a wide audience a work whose main concerns simultaneously transcend national and cultural boundaries.

This wide-ranging study of Japanese cultural expression reveals how a particular, often seemingly innocent aesthetic sensibility—present in novels, essays, popular songs, film, and political ...
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This wide-ranging study of Japanese cultural expression reveals how a particular, often seemingly innocent aesthetic sensibility—present in novels, essays, popular songs, film, and political writings—helped create an “aesthetic of fascism” in the years leading up to World War II. Evoking beautiful moments of violence, both real and imagined, these works did not lead to fascism in any instrumental sense. Yet, the book suggests, they expressed and inspired spiritual longings quenchable only through acts in the real world. The book traces this lineage of aesthetic fascism from its beginnings in the 1920s through its flowering in the 1930s to its afterlife in postwar Japan.Less

The Aesthetics of Japanese Fascism

Alan Tansman

Published in print: 2009-12-08

This wide-ranging study of Japanese cultural expression reveals how a particular, often seemingly innocent aesthetic sensibility—present in novels, essays, popular songs, film, and political writings—helped create an “aesthetic of fascism” in the years leading up to World War II. Evoking beautiful moments of violence, both real and imagined, these works did not lead to fascism in any instrumental sense. Yet, the book suggests, they expressed and inspired spiritual longings quenchable only through acts in the real world. The book traces this lineage of aesthetic fascism from its beginnings in the 1920s through its flowering in the 1930s to its afterlife in postwar Japan.

The Age of Irreverence tells why China’s entry into the modern age was not just traumatic but also uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into ...
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The Age of Irreverence tells why China’s entry into the modern age was not just traumatic but also uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called “histories of laughter.” During the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists, and illustrators used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But political and cultural discussion repeatedly erupted into invective, as critics jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that the writers launched a campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor). Christopher Rea argues that this era—from the 1890s to the 1930s—transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter—jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor—he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China’s first “age of irreverence.” This new history offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity and discusses its legacy in the language and styles of Chinese humor today.Less

Age of Irreverence : A New History of Laughter in China

Christopher Rea

Published in print: 2015-09-08

The Age of Irreverence tells why China’s entry into the modern age was not just traumatic but also uproarious. As the Qing dynasty slumped toward extinction, prominent writers compiled jokes into collections they called “histories of laughter.” During the first years of the Republic, novelists, essayists, and illustrators used humorous allegories to make veiled critiques of the new government. But political and cultural discussion repeatedly erupted into invective, as critics jeered and derided rivals in public. Farceurs drew followings in the popular press, promoting a culture of practical joking and buffoonery. Eventually, these expressions of hilarity proved so offensive to high-brow writers that the writers launched a campaign to transform the tone of public discourse, hoping to displace the old forms of mirth with a new one they called youmo (humor). Christopher Rea argues that this era—from the 1890s to the 1930s—transformed how Chinese people thought and talked about what is funny. Focusing on five cultural expressions of laughter—jokes, play, mockery, farce, and humor—he reveals the textures of comedy that were a part of everyday life during modern China’s first “age of irreverence.” This new history offers an unprecedented and up-close look at a neglected facet of Chinese cultural modernity and discusses its legacy in the language and styles of Chinese humor today.

Assimilating Seoul merges Korean history and Japanese history to uncover interactions obscured by conventional narratives centered on these two nation-states. The first monograph-length study of ...
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Assimilating Seoul merges Korean history and Japanese history to uncover interactions obscured by conventional narratives centered on these two nation-states. The first monograph-length study of colonial Seoul in English, this book challenges nationalistic paradigms that still inform much of the research on this important city. Assimilating Seoul offers an alternative, transnational history by treating urban spaces as “contact zones.” Through micro-histories of Shintō festivals, industrial expositions, and hygiene campaigns, I show how the city's residents negotiated official pressures aimed at “assimilating” them. Unlike previous, top-down analyses, my book employs historical ethnography to investigate this organizing principle of Japanese rule as experienced from the bottom up. Although the colonial state did set broad policy goals for the cultural incorporation of Koreans, elite settlers and their subaltern brethren managed to redeploy government initiatives according to their own interests and thereby to reshape the speed and direction of assimilation. This approach also reveals the varied ways in which Koreans of different class and gender backgrounds rearticulated the terms of their incorporation into the Japan's multiethnic empire.Less

Assimilating Seoul : Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945

Todd A. Henry

Published in print: 2014-02-15

Assimilating Seoul merges Korean history and Japanese history to uncover interactions obscured by conventional narratives centered on these two nation-states. The first monograph-length study of colonial Seoul in English, this book challenges nationalistic paradigms that still inform much of the research on this important city. Assimilating Seoul offers an alternative, transnational history by treating urban spaces as “contact zones.” Through micro-histories of Shintō festivals, industrial expositions, and hygiene campaigns, I show how the city's residents negotiated official pressures aimed at “assimilating” them. Unlike previous, top-down analyses, my book employs historical ethnography to investigate this organizing principle of Japanese rule as experienced from the bottom up. Although the colonial state did set broad policy goals for the cultural incorporation of Koreans, elite settlers and their subaltern brethren managed to redeploy government initiatives according to their own interests and thereby to reshape the speed and direction of assimilation. This approach also reveals the varied ways in which Koreans of different class and gender backgrounds rearticulated the terms of their incorporation into the Japan's multiethnic empire.

In 1895 Japan acquired Taiwan as its first formal colony after a resounding victory in the Sino-Japanese war. For the next fifty years, Japanese rule devastated and transformed the entire ...
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In 1895 Japan acquired Taiwan as its first formal colony after a resounding victory in the Sino-Japanese war. For the next fifty years, Japanese rule devastated and transformed the entire socioeconomic and political fabric of Taiwanese society. This book examines the formation of Taiwanese political and cultural identities under the dominant Japanese colonial discourse of assimilation (dôka) and imperialization (kôminka) from the early 1920s to the end of the Japanese Empire in 1945. It analyzes the ways in which the Taiwanese struggled, negotiated, and collaborated with Japanese colonialism during the cultural practices of assimilation and imperialization. The book chronicles a historiography of colonial identity formations that delineates the shift from a collective and heterogeneous political horizon into a personal and inner struggle of “becoming Japanese.” Representing Japanese colonialism in Taiwan as a topography of multiple associations and identifications made possible through the triangulation of imperialist Japan, nationalist China, and colonial Taiwan, the author demonstrates the irreducible tension and contradiction inherent in the formations and transformations of colonial identities. Throughout the colonial period, Taiwanese elites imagined and constructed China as a discursive space where various forms of cultural identification and national affiliation were projected. Bridging history and literary studies, the book rethinks the history of Japanese rule in Taiwan by expanding its approach to colonial discourses.Less

Leo Ching

Published in print: 2001-06-30

In 1895 Japan acquired Taiwan as its first formal colony after a resounding victory in the Sino-Japanese war. For the next fifty years, Japanese rule devastated and transformed the entire socioeconomic and political fabric of Taiwanese society. This book examines the formation of Taiwanese political and cultural identities under the dominant Japanese colonial discourse of assimilation (dôka) and imperialization (kôminka) from the early 1920s to the end of the Japanese Empire in 1945. It analyzes the ways in which the Taiwanese struggled, negotiated, and collaborated with Japanese colonialism during the cultural practices of assimilation and imperialization. The book chronicles a historiography of colonial identity formations that delineates the shift from a collective and heterogeneous political horizon into a personal and inner struggle of “becoming Japanese.” Representing Japanese colonialism in Taiwan as a topography of multiple associations and identifications made possible through the triangulation of imperialist Japan, nationalist China, and colonial Taiwan, the author demonstrates the irreducible tension and contradiction inherent in the formations and transformations of colonial identities. Throughout the colonial period, Taiwanese elites imagined and constructed China as a discursive space where various forms of cultural identification and national affiliation were projected. Bridging history and literary studies, the book rethinks the history of Japanese rule in Taiwan by expanding its approach to colonial discourses.

This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a ...
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This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a major force in the making of twentieth-century Chinese history. Further, they show that modernity in material culture and changes in intellectual consciousness should serve as twin foci of a new wave of scholarly analysis. Examining in particular the rise of modern Chinese cities and the making of the Chinese nation-state, the chapters provide new ways of thinking about China's modern transformation up to the 1950s. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate that the combined effect of a modernizing state and an industrializing economy weakened the Chinese bourgeoisie and undercut the individual's quest for autonomy. Drawing upon new archival sources, these theoretically informed, thoroughly revisionist chapters focus on topics such as Western-inspired modernity, urban cosmopolitanism, consumer culture, gender relationships, interchanges between city and countryside, and the growing impact of the state on the lives of individuals. The volume makes an important contribution toward a postsocialist understanding of twentieth-century China.Less

Becoming Chinese : Passages to Modernity and Beyond

Published in print: 2000-04-21

This volume evaluates the dual roles of war and modernity in the transformation of twentieth-century Chinese identity. The chapters argue that war, no less than revolution, deserves attention as a major force in the making of twentieth-century Chinese history. Further, they show that modernity in material culture and changes in intellectual consciousness should serve as twin foci of a new wave of scholarly analysis. Examining in particular the rise of modern Chinese cities and the making of the Chinese nation-state, the chapters provide new ways of thinking about China's modern transformation up to the 1950s. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate that the combined effect of a modernizing state and an industrializing economy weakened the Chinese bourgeoisie and undercut the individual's quest for autonomy. Drawing upon new archival sources, these theoretically informed, thoroughly revisionist chapters focus on topics such as Western-inspired modernity, urban cosmopolitanism, consumer culture, gender relationships, interchanges between city and countryside, and the growing impact of the state on the lives of individuals. The volume makes an important contribution toward a postsocialist understanding of twentieth-century China.

This book looks at the emergence of urbanism in the interwar period, a global moment when the material and ideological structures that constitute “the city” took their characteristic modern shape. In ...
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This book looks at the emergence of urbanism in the interwar period, a global moment when the material and ideological structures that constitute “the city” took their characteristic modern shape. In Japan, as elsewhere, cities became the staging ground for wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and political transformations. The rise of social problems, the formation of a consumer marketplace, the proliferation of streetcars and suburbs, and the cascade of investments in urban development reinvented the city as both socio-spatial form and set of ideas. Young tells this story through the optic of the provincial city, examining the impact of rapid industrialization and urban growth on four second-tier cities: Sapporo, Kanazawa, Niigata, and Okayama. As prefectural capitals, these cities were centers of their respective regions. All of the four, like the metropolitan giants, grew at an enormous rate in the interwar decades. In spite of such commonalities, however, diverse local conditions meant that policies of national development and the vagaries of the business cycle impacted individual cities in diverse ways. As their differences reveal, there is no single master narrative of twentieth-century modernization. By engaging urban culture beyond the metropolis, this study shows that Japanese modernity was not made in Tokyo and exported to the provinces, but rather co-constituted through the circulation and exchange of people and ideas throughout the country and beyond.Less

Beyond the Metropolis : Second Cities and Modern Life in Interwar Japan

Louise Young

Published in print: 2013-04-15

This book looks at the emergence of urbanism in the interwar period, a global moment when the material and ideological structures that constitute “the city” took their characteristic modern shape. In Japan, as elsewhere, cities became the staging ground for wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and political transformations. The rise of social problems, the formation of a consumer marketplace, the proliferation of streetcars and suburbs, and the cascade of investments in urban development reinvented the city as both socio-spatial form and set of ideas. Young tells this story through the optic of the provincial city, examining the impact of rapid industrialization and urban growth on four second-tier cities: Sapporo, Kanazawa, Niigata, and Okayama. As prefectural capitals, these cities were centers of their respective regions. All of the four, like the metropolitan giants, grew at an enormous rate in the interwar decades. In spite of such commonalities, however, diverse local conditions meant that policies of national development and the vagaries of the business cycle impacted individual cities in diverse ways. As their differences reveal, there is no single master narrative of twentieth-century modernization. By engaging urban culture beyond the metropolis, this study shows that Japanese modernity was not made in Tokyo and exported to the provinces, but rather co-constituted through the circulation and exchange of people and ideas throughout the country and beyond.

In this study of the mapping and remapping of male-male sexuality over four centuries of Japanese history, the book explores the languages of medicine, law, and popular culture from the seventeenth ...
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In this study of the mapping and remapping of male-male sexuality over four centuries of Japanese history, the book explores the languages of medicine, law, and popular culture from the seventeenth century through the American Occupation. The book opens with fascinating speculations about how an Edo translator might grapple with a twentieth-century text on homosexuality, then turns to law, literature, newspaper articles, medical tracts, and other sources to discover Japanese attitudes toward sexuality over the centuries. During each of three major eras, it argues, one field dominated discourse on male-male sexual relations: popular culture in the Edo period (1600–1868), jurisprudence in the Meiji period (1868–1912), and medicine in the twentieth century.Less

Cartographies of Desire : Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950

Gregory Pflugfelder

Published in print: 2000-08-02

In this study of the mapping and remapping of male-male sexuality over four centuries of Japanese history, the book explores the languages of medicine, law, and popular culture from the seventeenth century through the American Occupation. The book opens with fascinating speculations about how an Edo translator might grapple with a twentieth-century text on homosexuality, then turns to law, literature, newspaper articles, medical tracts, and other sources to discover Japanese attitudes toward sexuality over the centuries. During each of three major eras, it argues, one field dominated discourse on male-male sexual relations: popular culture in the Edo period (1600–1868), jurisprudence in the Meiji period (1868–1912), and medicine in the twentieth century.

This study explores the complex position of the Catholic Church in modern Vietnamese history. It demonstrates how French colonial rule in Indochina allowed for the transformation of Catholic missions ...
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This study explores the complex position of the Catholic Church in modern Vietnamese history. It demonstrates how French colonial rule in Indochina allowed for the transformation of Catholic missions in Vietnam into broad and powerful economic and institutional structures in which race defined both ecclesiastical, cultural prestige and control of resources and institutional authority. This, along with colonial rule itself, created a culture of religious life in which relationships between Vietnamese Catholics and European missionaries were less equal and more fractious than ever before. The colonial era, however, also brought unprecedented ties between Vietnam and the transnational institutions and culture of global Catholicism, as Vatican reforms to create an independent national church helped Vietnamese Catholics to reimagine and redefine their relationships to both missionary Catholicism and to colonial rule itself. Much like the myriad revolutionary ideologies and struggles in the name of the Vietnamese nation, this revolution in Vietnamese Catholic life was ultimately ambiguous, even contradictory: it established the foundations for an independent national church, but it also polarized the place of the new church in postcolonial Vietnamese politics and society, and it produced deep divisions between Vietnamese Catholics themselves.Less

Catholic Vietnam : A Church from Empire to Nation

Charles Keith

Published in print: 2012-10-18

This study explores the complex position of the Catholic Church in modern Vietnamese history. It demonstrates how French colonial rule in Indochina allowed for the transformation of Catholic missions in Vietnam into broad and powerful economic and institutional structures in which race defined both ecclesiastical, cultural prestige and control of resources and institutional authority. This, along with colonial rule itself, created a culture of religious life in which relationships between Vietnamese Catholics and European missionaries were less equal and more fractious than ever before. The colonial era, however, also brought unprecedented ties between Vietnam and the transnational institutions and culture of global Catholicism, as Vatican reforms to create an independent national church helped Vietnamese Catholics to reimagine and redefine their relationships to both missionary Catholicism and to colonial rule itself. Much like the myriad revolutionary ideologies and struggles in the name of the Vietnamese nation, this revolution in Vietnamese Catholic life was ultimately ambiguous, even contradictory: it established the foundations for an independent national church, but it also polarized the place of the new church in postcolonial Vietnamese politics and society, and it produced deep divisions between Vietnamese Catholics themselves.

Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in ...
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Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in a long series of Western aggressions against China. This book explores the roles of perception and sentiment in the growth of popular nationalism in China. At a time when the direction of China's foreign and domestic policies have profound ramifications worldwide, the author offers an in-depth look at the nature of China's new nationalism, particularly as it involves Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations: two bilateral relations that carry extraordinary implications for peace and stability in the twenty-first century. This new nationalism is traced through recent Chinese books and magazines, movies, television shows, posters, and cartoons. Anti-Western sentiment, once created and encouraged by China's ruling PRC, has been taken up independently by a new generation of Chinese. Deeply rooted in narratives about past “humiliations” at the hands of the West and impassioned notions of Chinese identity, popular nationalism is now undermining the Communist Party's monopoly on political discourse, threatening the regime's stability. The book analyzes the impact that popular nationalism will have on twenty-first century China and the world.Less

China's New Nationalism : Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy

Peter Hays Gries

Published in print: 2004-01-30

Three American missiles hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and what Americans view as an appalling and tragic mistake, many Chinese see as a “barbaric” and intentional “criminal act,” the latest in a long series of Western aggressions against China. This book explores the roles of perception and sentiment in the growth of popular nationalism in China. At a time when the direction of China's foreign and domestic policies have profound ramifications worldwide, the author offers an in-depth look at the nature of China's new nationalism, particularly as it involves Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations: two bilateral relations that carry extraordinary implications for peace and stability in the twenty-first century. This new nationalism is traced through recent Chinese books and magazines, movies, television shows, posters, and cartoons. Anti-Western sentiment, once created and encouraged by China's ruling PRC, has been taken up independently by a new generation of Chinese. Deeply rooted in narratives about past “humiliations” at the hands of the West and impassioned notions of Chinese identity, popular nationalism is now undermining the Communist Party's monopoly on political discourse, threatening the regime's stability. The book analyzes the impact that popular nationalism will have on twenty-first century China and the world.